MUSIC : L.A. Master Chorale

If it’s true that inside every fat man is a thin man trying to get out, inside every large chorus may lurk a madrigal group. At any rate, this weekend the Los Angeles Master Chorale shrank to barely more than a tithe of its full complement.

“Vive la France!” was the program John Currie and 16 members of the Chorale offered, Friday at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach and Saturday at the Japan America Theatre, as part of the Nakamichi Concerts series. With only two exceptions, the short agenda stuck resolutely to chansons and motets in a style bound by Debussy at one end and Poulenc at the other.

The exceptions were Renaissance works by Claude Le Jeune--the madrigal ensemble commonplace “Revecy Venir du Printans,” and “Fiere Cruelle.” Hindemith’s familiar Six Chansons on poems by Rilke don’t count as exceptions, as they share fully in the style and spirit of Poulenc.

These pieces may be heard on many a campus, but seldom in such bright, textually pointed singing. Currie’s little group produced well-balanced, rhythmically supple efforts of real charm.

Poulenc’s dark, dramatic “Quatre Motets pour un Temps de Penitence” was the evening’s sole gesture toward the sacred and serious, sublimated sorrow. Currie performed them as a set, and they hit with compressed, yearning force.

The rest of the program consisted of three chansons each by Poulenc, Debussy and Ravel. The Ravel set, at least, is well known, but Currie’s singers delivered them all freshly and buoyantly. Currie proved sensitive to the quasi-folkloric nature of most of this music, allowing it simplicity and directness.

With such a small group and music so crystalline in texture, all the singers were perforce soloists of a sort. Two were singled out--soprano Susan Montgomery in Ravel’s “Trois Beaux Oiseaux du Paradis”, and mezzo Lori Turner in Debussy’s “Quand j’ai ouy le tabourin.” Both proved typically clear and alert to the demands of text and tune. Currie prefaced many of the works with brief, genial commentary.